 is an independent online radio station that broadcasts a 24/7 livestream of over 165 resident DJs. True to its artistic roots, The Lot Radio is housed in a reclaimed shipping container in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and provides a public space for enjoying electronic, disco, and soul music.

“It’s a regular 20-foot shipping container that we redesigned. It’s exactly divided in two. On the left side, you have a radio studio. On the right side, we have a kiosk where we sell beer, wine, and coffee. That’s how we finance the whole operation”

Over one million minutes of video has been transcoded by The Lot Radio since it started livestreaming on the Livepeer network almost two years ago.

Francois initially used livestream.com because it was one of the only 24/7 livestreaming services available, and it was a local company that provided a lot of hands-on support. However, he needed to find a new solution after livestream.com was acquired by Vimeo and stopped offering its 24/7 service. Francois searched for an alternative, but discovered that it was difficult to find a livestreaming platform that was affordable — this was important as The Lot Radio is a not-for-profit organization.

He eventually stumbled upon Livepeer in a Google search and found the website intriguing, even though he didn’t know much about “the blockchain.” Francois was impressed by how easy it was to start using Livepeer, and in just a few clicks, he was livestreaming.

“Basically, the fun thing was that you could start directly. I remember I [created] an account, I clicked a few clicks, and my RTMP server was set up. I tested directly with myself, it was streaming, and I was like - this seems pretty legit”

After successfully livestreaming a few of his events, Francois reached out to the Livepeer core team to learn more about the project.

“It has been a pleasure. When I reached out for the first time, they directly organized a big meeting with, kind of, all of the core team of the project… And since then, to be honest, the project is so stable, that I don’t really have to communicate with [Livepeer] ever… we just keep updated from time to time about the new technology, but overall, it does the job, the price is really affordable, and we’re really happy about it”

After almost two years of broadcasting music, The Lot Radio is still successfully running - the affordability of the Livepeer network being a key reason.

The Lot Radio has big plans for the future. They want to keep growing and provide an independent stage for more resident DJs and other creative talents. Francois wants to eventually purchase a brick-and-mortar location, and build two new multimedia studios.

Additionally, Francois’ experience with Livepeer Studio has sparked his curiosity about the potential of web3. He plans on making the full transition to a decentralized future when the time is right for The Lot Radio.

“We feel it’s too early, like some things are missing here and there, but [it’s] definitely somewhere we want to go and that’s also why I’m excited to work with Livepeer - because, for us, it’s one foot already towards there, and that’s where we want to go for sure”

Check out the full interview with Francois Vaxelaire on 

It will surprise few to hear that the online fitness market is growing at a tremendous speed, though it might elicit a gasp to hear just by how much. The online fitness industry, valued at $6 billion dollars in 

,  is expected to reach $59.2 billion by 2027.

Though this trend has accelerated due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, it is not one that was started by it. Prior to 2020, there had already been increasing interest in at-home workouts catering to the busy, those living or traveling in remote locations, and those looking to take advantage of lower pricing and higher optionality. One of the best examples of the trend is Peloton, a company selling high-end connected exercise bikes, treadmills, and fitness subscriptions. They were seeing 

The growth of companies like Peloton, of course, have accelerated this year thanks to quarantines around the world. Peloton’s stock is currently trading at about 

The question on most people’s minds, however, is whether the at-home workout trend will continue beyond 2020. The resounding answer is yes.

Research from fitness class schedule app Mindbody suggests that though in-person classes will continue to be popular after the COVID-19 pandemic, 

 of individuals still expect to do a virtual workout once a week, and 37% anticipate participating in two or three per week. Peloton predicts that at least 

 of Americans do not intend to renew their physical gym memberships once in-person classes are a safe option again.

This new “blended” in-person and virtual approach to fitness will see a shift in types of classes demanded in each of those settings. When restrictions were eased this summer in Australia, the most popular at-home workout became yoga. Weight training and pilates, classes that can require a significant investment in equipment, became the most popular in-person classes people returned to.

Apple, it turns out, is making a similar bet on “blended” fitness. It is projected to launch Fitness + by the end of 2020, a subscription fitness service that will feature yoga, strength, running, and cycling classes, amongst others. Apple expects that people will do many of 

, not just from the comfort of their own home. In places like NYC, where gyms are open but are not yet allowed to offer indoors fitness classes, Fitness + might be a game-changer, especially as the winter sets in and outdoor workout classes become less feasible.

It is clear to Apple, Peloton, and many others in the industry, that consumers will continue to expect fitness companies to offer technology-enabled virtual workouts alongside more traditional in-person fitness classes. Millions of people have purchased dumbbells, Peloton bikes and treadmills, OrangeTheory heart rate monitors, and other equipment to assist them in creating a similar environment to that of a physical gym, at home. Thanks to wearables and other fitness technology, instructors in live-streamed classes are now able to monitor their students’ heart rates, calories burned, speeds, posture, and level of effort throughout their workouts, which makes them able to intervene, correct, and motivate as they would in a physical fitness class. It also allows users to sync their workout data to smart devices of their choosing more smoothly, thus making it easier to track and control their overall health and fitness.

Those who have invested in an at-home workout space with equipment and fitness technology will find it harder to justify paying exorbitant membership fees for in-person classes post-pandemic.

Another lasting change stemming from at-home quarantines will be a heightened awareness of personal health. Rising rates of diabetes, obesity, and other chronic ailments due to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle is a wake-up call for many, which has left them with no other option than to engage in workouts at home. Needless to say, employers are paying attention. Many are helping their workforce stay healthy by sponsoring at-home exercise subscriptions, meditation, and general wellness programs.

Large companies like Peloton, OrangeTheory, and Apple are not the only ones who stand to capitalize on the at-home fitness trend. As the market continues to double, triple, and quadruple in size over the next decade, there is plenty of room for innovation.

Individual instructors and small independent gyms will be looking for help to digitize in the growing “blended” virtual and in-person model of fitness. Many have had to resort to using Zoom, Facebook Live, Instagram Live, and other live video platforms to stream their workouts to interested participants, a sub-par option. Streaming a live fitness class is one thing. Teaching is another. These small companies are looking for more customized fitness management platforms that will allow them to collect payment, interact with their students, monitor students’ progress live, and generally provide an excellent holistic remote fitness program experience. Zoom and social media platforms just don’t cut it.

As gyms are forced to shut down and lay-off their staff, more and more individuals will look to start their own independent “blended” fitness companies, where live, on-demand, and in-person classes will all be a part of their offerings. Technology can help ease the transition.

At Livepeer.com, we’re passionate about the live fitness streaming industry, and understand the incredible benefits working out can have on our health, especially as many continue to work from home. We offer reliable, scalable, and easy-to-use live video transcoding services at a fraction of the cost. We hope to enable use-cases in this industry that would have previously been cost-prohibitive. For more information, please get in touch with us at 

The Future of Online Fitness

Live video streaming no doubt comes with its challenges. Without the ability to stop or re-do your stream, your only option is to prepare as much as possible in advance. Here are 7 quick tips on how to take your live streaming to the next level!

Tip #1: Make sure you have a strong internet connection

The quality of your broadcast can be heavily affected by a shoddy internet connection. The more high quality a video you’re uploading to be streamed, the stronger your connection must be.

To test your current upload and download speeds, use this 

. For a 720p video at 30 frames per second, you will need an upload rate of at least 5.7 mbps. For a 1080p video, you’ll need 13 Mbps. 

If you have access to an ethernet cable and can physically plug into the internet, you should do so. An ethernet connection is typically faster, more reliable, stable and secure than a wireless connection.

If you are using an ethernet connection, it might help to disable wifi connections for the duration of your broadcast.

If you are using a wireless connection, try moving closer to the router if your signal seems unstable or weak.

If you’re using software like OBS running on a computer, make sure that you limit other tasks or applications running on your machine. This will free up CPU. The more CPU available, the faster you’ll be able to process and upload your live stream.

Remove or turn off other devices that might also be using your internet network.

Tip #2: Set up the best streaming equipment available for your use case.

Decide what your target streaming quality should be, and purchase equipment that can output such quality. Though size and quality of a video can be decreased through 

, a video can’t be made to have a higher quality than the quality it was originally recorded in.

For professional streaming, investing in a 4k or full HD camera is a must. For social media streaming on platforms like Youtube, Facebook, Twitch, or your own custom platform, using a cellphone, a laptop camera, or a lower quality recording device can be sufficient.

Tip #3: Take advantage of Video Transcoding and Adaptive Bitrate Streaming

Video transcoding or encoding, is a process that ensures that viewers can stream content without buffering at the highest possible quality. This ensures that your video is, as we call it, "internet-ready" and viewable by anyone in the world regardless of location, viewing device and circumstances - it will allow your content to reach more end users.

Livepeer can help you here. When you send Livepeer a stream, we turn it into multiple streams of the same video in different sizes (resolutions) and qualities (bitrates, frame rates), each of which is optimized for viewers with different internet speeds and devices.

How does a phone, tablet, or laptop know which of these streams to download for optimal viewing? Most video players today can handle what’s called adaptive bitrate streaming (ABR) - detecting the strength of a viewer’s internet connection and CPU capacity to then select the most optimal stream to show them. The higher the quality of a video stream, the stronger/higher the internet connection and available CPU needs to be. ABR can switch automatically between streams within milliseconds for the best viewing experience possible.

To try transcoding your first Livepeer stream in less than 5 minutes, follow 

Tip #4: Select the appropriate frame rate for your stream

To make sure your live video is accessible by the most number of people around the world, you should select transcoding settings that give viewers options.

The first thing you should consider is frame rate or frames per second (fps). This is the frequency at which images or frames appear in one second of your video. The higher the frame rate, the better quality of your video, the larger the file size you have to transmit over the internet to your users (hence the need for a faster internet connection), and the higher amount of storage you need to store the video. The movie and gaming industries typically use 24 fps and 30 fps respectively, while high definition or HD video use 60 fps, the maximum fps that most monitors and TV’s can display.

At Livepeer, we recommend setting your FPS to 30 if you’re just getting started, though anything between 5 FPS and 60 FPS would encompass most use cases.

Tip #5: Select a variety of resolutions to transcode your stream into

The second important setting to consider is video resolutions. These are measured in pixels (p) or single "points" or squares in a picture. Some of the most common video resolutions, and ones we recommend, are:

The key here is to select a set of resolutions that fit your use case. If you expect most people to watch your stream using their cellphone, and are located all over the world, including smaller resolutions is imperative. If you expect your stream to be watched mostly on high-resolution TVs, you might want to select a couple of higher resolutions, like 1280 x 720 pixels (720p) or 1920 x 1080 pixels (1080p).

To learn how to set your own custom resolutions using the Livepeer API, take a look 

. If you’re just getting started and would like to use livepeer.com to 

, you don’t have to worry about that - we pick the most appropriate resolutions for you!

Video bitrate is the number of bits, the smallest unit of data in a computer that can be processed in a specific amount of time. A higher bitrate will generally mean a higher video quality and larger file size. To get a better idea of what bitrates are typical, HD Blu-ray video hovers around 20,000 kilobits per second (Kbits), web video is typically between 2000 and 3000 Kbits, and phone videos are typically less than 1000 Kbits.

The lower your resolution, the lower the bitrate required - with less information to transmit over the internet, there is no need to have a high bitrate.

Everyone’s set up, desired video quality, and target audience varies. Finding the most optimal video and transcoding set-up might take you a couple of tries. We recommend you test using different equipment or software, try wireless v. ethernet connection, and test a number of transcoding settings with a variety of frame rates, bitrates, and resolutions.

If you’re streaming to established live streaming social media platforms, you might want to check out any quality constraints or guidelines as well. If you’re selecting your own video player to stream into, be sure to test with several of them prior to settling on one. 

Once you’ve tested several different setups, select the one that worked best for you and get started live streaming!

 for more recommendations, for help selecting the best transcoding settings for your use case, and for general questions about live streaming. We’d love to hear about what you’re working on!

7 Tips to Take Your Live Streaming to the Next Level

Founded in 2016 by Francois Vaxelaire, The Lot Radio is an independent online radio station that broadcasts a 24/7 livestream of over 165 resident DJs. Over one million minutes of video has been transcoded by The Lot Radio since it started livestreaming on the Livepeer network almost two years ago.

Why The Lot Radio Livestreams 24/7 with Livepeer Studio

About The Lot Radio

Discovering Livepeer Studio

Future Plans